I'm back again, and boy have things changed, sorta. . .

 Ron and I have been joined on our little island paradise by both of our adult daughters, two more cats (Ares & Athena), and a second dog (Juniper) to keep Madrone company. I am really glad to have them all here with us.

 Ron was diagnosed with metastatic cancer last fall. His esophageal cancer has resurfaced in his chest wall and his prognosis is not great.  We lost his mother in early November, shortly after his cancer was located. We have received great support from our family, friends, and our church. I have been attending counseling via zoom, which is also how Ron and I continue to attend our church services. 

Besides the unfortunate news, we have had some really great things happen in the last 3 years.  Ron's Sister and her husband have relocated just down the road into Mum's summer cabin, and our niece with her family have also recently moved to Gabe. Dax married his sweet wife Rachael in our park one summer and we attended their sealing at the Calgary temple the following week.

Ron and I took a big train trip to visit family in California for Christmas 2021 and had a great time.

Kaili is in her last semester of her Bachelors of Fine Arts and working at the local thrift/recycling center. Ellie is working at the local pharmacy while she works on getting her own health challenges sorted. She is planning to become a pharmacist.

Our garden was not great last year due to weather and vermin. We did have some really good flowers, just not many food crops. I am hoping we can figure out some solutions to the vermin situation, and use the greenhouse to better effect this year. I just rescued my lemon crops from the rats yesterday. I see more lemon merengue in the near future at our place.

Lots of Bubbles

We have finally gotten some nice summer weather here. Madrone would spend all day, every day at the beach if we would stay down there with him. He loves playing fetch and splashing. Blowing bubbles in his water dish seems to be pretty cool too.

I have been experimenting with hot process soap this summer. So far I have made about 6 batches of hand/body soap and one batch of shampoo bars. 

I'm also at around 50 masks sewn so far. My pattern and process has morphed, and I'm pretty happy with the last dozen or so. One friend of mine is over the 500 mark on mask making. She's donated all of them.

I have also gotten to make 3 batches of ice cream this summer. The ice cream freezer broke at one point, so I used the drill to turn the dasher for one batch. Fortunately,  I was able to fix the machine and it seems to be working fine now.

The COVID thing continues.  .  . The numbers in BC are on the rise again, though our cases per capita are still very low. We are being urged to keep our "social bubbles" as small as possible. 

Our bubble seems to include mostly family.

We had a nice visit from Dax and his girlfriend a couple of weeks ago, it was really great to see them. We continue to take lunch with Mum and Lloyd once a week in Shawnigan. The Langford contingent of the family have been up a few times this summer. Fortunately, when our brakes needed to be replaced, we were able to have all new ones installed on the van by our nephew. 

The garden has been going gang busters with tomatoes, squash, potatoes, chard, peas, and etc. Unfortunately, the rats seem to have found my tomatoes and decimated the recent crop. A trap has now been employed to remedy the situation. 

From Junuary to Japril

We're having a cooler and wetter summer than usual so far. 1or 2 days a week we'll get a glimpse of more typical weather, and I am definitely grateful for those; they have been spectacular.

One year ago today this sweet boy joined our family.

The grass is growing like crazy (more mowing than usual), and the veggie garden seems pretty happy too. We have been eating squash for a while now. We have also gotten some beets, strawberries, peas, chard, mustard, lettuce, garlic scapes, and a single artichoke. The potatoes are chest high at this point. For such a small garden it feels pretty prolific.

We've been taking lunch to Mum and Lloyd in Shawnigan about once a week. Hopefully helps to break up the isolation a little bit for everyone.

We've been laying low and attending church with Mom via Zoom. Apparently, our ward will begin having in person meetings soon, but Ron and I will stay on our little island. BC has been very fortunate with proactive leadership and haven't gotten the full brunt of this virus. That said, it's still a threat and we will be very conservative in our choices.